AstralArchilocus

As a former music teacher, I can also say that "learn the fundamentals first" is the death knell for a vast percentage of beginners, especially adult learners.

I've run into this with drawing several times, where some well-meaning artist has lectured me on needing to study anatomy properly or not use shortcuts like CSP brushes. And oh, believe me, I know. I know exactly how to learn an artistic discipline in a structured way. I just...don't want to!

The thing is, I'm not aiming to be a professional artist. I want to draw my gay little anime guys. I would undoubtedly improve at art much faster if I approached every gay little anime guy drawing as a study exercise. But I would also have quit drawing a decade ago if I couldn't just let myself enjoy drawing imperfect fucked-up little guys with whatever shortcuts I needed to body myself across the finish line.

With my adult piano students, my approach was always "What's your goal?" If their goal was to learn exactly one Elton John songbook to play at parties, then...that's what we did. We'd put tape on the keys to label the notes, and just fuckin go for it. Learning exactly one Elton John songbook is a good and noble musical goal, full stop.

Some of my students needed and enjoyed a more structured approach to learning; if they wanted to be able to play classical music, then yes, scales were going to have to enter the equation at some point. And yet others would learn the Elton John songbook, catch their white whale, and realize they wanted to explore more of the ocean. The scales were still there for them to learn!

Often the choice isn't between "learn art well" and "learn art imperfectly" - the choice is between "learn art imperfectly" and "don't do art at all." To which I say, learn imperfectly! Or, what the hell, don't 'learn' art. Just do, and enjoy the doing of it.

Bodily autonomy (like abortion, anti draft, etc) -> “The government shouldn’t be able to force anything on my body I don’t want.”

Anti surveillance -> “I don’t trust big government/big tech (big brother if you’re feeling frisky) with the ability to spy on me and my family.”

Immigration -> “Next to all of us immigrated at some point, I don’t see why the elites get to decide who’s allowed to be where. What’s to stop them coming for me?”

Climate Change -> “Big oil shouldn’t get to determine whether or not I get to go places. I don’t want to be dependent on some big business to survive.”

State Violence -> “I don’t want the goddamn secret police breathing down my neck! I trust my community a whole hell of a lot more to help me than I do the state!”

okay so. officially starting a ko-fi goal to help with moving costs (shipping my stuff, physically getting me there, covering a bit of rent) so i can live with my wife . goal is at $3k which i know is a lot to ask for help with but hopefully i shouldn't have to ask tumblr for help like this again barring some catastrophe

Okay, now are you ready to hear my biggest personal biology hot take?

@crearuru this is a really funny comment, I find it interesting sometimes to see how others interpret the things I say on this website that seem very straightforward in my mind. Always neat to hear a different perspective.

To me, the phrase “promote vaccination efforts” would imply supporting development and distribution of vaccines to protect humans against these vector borne illnesses. In the case of rabies we can easily vaccinate the primary vector to threaten humans (dogs), but with arboviruses or bacteria carried by invertebrates it is obviously more feasible to directly vaccinate the humans at risk.

While this isn't news to anyone who works in this space, it is useful to have this water-is-wet research to affirm that Indigenous knowledge and land management are extremely effective at storing carbon and protecting biodiversity.

I want to draw special attention to this part of the article:

I get a fair number of asks and comments on my posts expressing sentiments like "human beings are a plague on this Earth", "humans ruin everything, we deserve to be wiped out", "humanity is inherently selfish, evil, and irredeemable".

I don't think the folks saying these things have bad intentions, I know their words come from a place of very understandable pain, fear, and anger. But to act as though humanity's impact on nature is inherently damaging and extractive is to erase thousands of years of Indigenous stewardship of nature. These ecosystems are thriving because there are humans living there.

Carb starts your engine, protein keeps it going.

Cookie

Fruit (canned or fresh)

Chips

Piece of bread

Popcorn

Crackers

Easy protein add on:

Nuts

Spoonful of nut butter

Cheese

Roasted chickpea snacks

Glass of milk (dairy or non dairy)

IMO, squeezy peanut butter tube is the magical substance rescue food if you are not allergic to nuts!

I am an insulin-dependent diabetic & I legit keep a squeezy tube of peanut butter on my nightstand and in my backpack (inside a reusable silicone bag so there's no chance it will explode all over the inside of my backpack). You can just open the tube and squeeze peanut butter directly into your mouth if you need to in an emergency, no need for utensils, etc. If my low-sugar alarm goes off in the middle of the night, I put a piece of candy in my mouth (or use my sugar-up-my-nose rescue thing if it's an Urgent Low Sugar alarm) and then I put peanut butter in my mouth. The candy will start to bring my blood sugar up FAST and the peanut butter will make sure that I don't just go into the stratosphere and crash back down again.

To give credit where it's due, I learned this trick from Leah Orleans/Stahr Power of Tiny Girl Big Show. She travels a lot, and squeezy peanut butter tubes can go in her carry-on through TSA.

You can get fancypants peanut butter if you want to, but a lot of the "made for travel, tiny portable things!" are like, $2+ an ounce, but the Jif Multipacks of the 13 oz tubes are like $.25 an ounce, and bc peanut butter doesn't go bad very quickly, you can buy that and shove it into a cupboard and just go through it over time.

When I say that this shit genuinely changed my life in terms of managing sugar crashes away from home, as a celiac diabetic, I am not one tiny bit joking.

Okay, end soapbox, bye.

Primer on the initiative from Philippine social movements:

The original signatories were Australia, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the UK and of course the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Silica